Children of the Community

                MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry caused quite a stir in the nation by saying that children do not belong to their parents but are the responsibility of their community when she recorded a commercial for the network’s “Lean Forward” campaign.  “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children.  Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these re our children.  So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”

                Like many other Americans, I was shocked when I read this statement although the idea has been around since Hilary Clinton wrote her book about it taking a village to raise a child.  My first thought was that the progressives who are in control of our government want to control our rising generation.  I recognize that the government that is not capable of running the Post Office successfully is in no position to raise our children! 

                Others shared similar opinions.  Angie Olszewski, a parent as well as a media communications expert, told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column:  “The notion that children belong to a state government rather than their own flesh and blood is the most disturbing statement made in recent political times….The government can’t properly run their own budgets, schools and public systems.  Why would anybody think they could rear children?”

                Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis at The Media Research Center, called the MSNBC spot “frightening” added:   “It’s bad enough that ‘Lean Forward’ already sounds like an ad for Mao’s Little Red Book; then to have your network’s hosts talk about your children being part of the Collective is just spooky.  I think most parents disappoint MSNBC with their traditional beliefs that their children are theirs to love and raise as they feel is best.  They don’t want to surrender their parental rights to the ‘village.’  It’s this same contempt for education beginning in the home that spurs many parents into home-schooling.”

                Other people like the idea of having the “village” raise our children.  Margaret Cone, a political lawyer based in Washington, D.C., explained:  “I was very close to the parents of my childhood friends.  They watched out for me.  It is society’s responsibility to ensure that the next generation is equipped to handle the ever-changing world.  Educating our children is a responsibility that has been grossly ignored to our detriment.”

                Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC host, dug in her heels when conservatives became outraged over her statement that children belong to “whole communities” and not just to their parents.  “When pro-family and conservative commentators objected to the anti-family, collectivist tone of the ad, Harris-Perry released a statement calling their criticism `hateful’ and said she had `no intention of apologizing’ for her remarks.”

                Harris-Perry dug her heels in even harder.  “I can see that some people are genuinely upset about what I actually said, [but] I stand by that statement.”  She explained, “I believe our children are not our private property, they are not just extensions of ourselves.  They are independent, individual beings.”  She also explained that the ad was meant to highlight the role of society and government in child rearing.  “This isn’t about me wanting to take your kids, and this isn’t even about whether children are property.  This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good.  And that is exactly the fight that we have been having for a couple hundred years.”

This MSNBC host just told us what the progressives have been trying to do for over a hundred years.  They have been – and still are – trying to take away our “individual freedoms in order to advance a common good.”  This is not the American way.  It is a socialist/communistic way of life.  This is the process by which Karl Marx, the Nazi party, the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao Zedong, etc. took over their nations.

Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio host, blasted Harris-Perry:  “The nuclear family has always, just like religion, must be destroyed and in its place, the community, collective….  Melissa Harris-Perry, what she is saying here is as old as communist genocide.”

Robert Lee, a political strategist wrote that Harris-Perry’s collectivist views on education bear striking similarities to philosophies adopted by the Nazi party and the Soviet Union during the twentieth century.  “Melissa Harris-Perry is demonstrating some of the most evil views about family and society, and there is no quicker route to destroy and dehumanize individuals than through a collectivized education system.

“This belief system that children start to belong to the community at large is what served as the foundation for many of the most horrific acts the world has known.  The idea that children can be disassociated from their parents is a dangerous precedent to collectivism, which will result in nothing less than a crumbling society.”

                I was reared by loving parents who took their parenting responsibility seriously; however, I understood that my parents would support any other adult – a member of our church family, teacher at the school, bus driver, neighbor, policeman, etc. – who found me doing wrong and corrected me.  I received many “lessons” from people outside my family, but none of those people thought I belonged to them.

                As a parent, I was grateful for friends who became “second parents” to my children for they taught my children “lessons” that I could not teach.  All of my children played on sports teams and received guidance from coaches.  Two of my daughters played on traveling soccer teams and received much love and direction from the team mothers and coaches. My son ran with a large group of young men and young women who were outstanding in every way, and the mothers and fathers of those friends had very positive influences on my son.  Leaders and teachers in our church organizations have also influenced my children greatly and helped them become better people.  All of these people helped me in my parenting responsibilities, but none of them tried in any way to usurp my position as the parent.  I was very grateful for their assistance, but I always maintained parental authority.

                I believe the progressive idea that “it takes a village to raise a child” is different than receiving assistance from family, friends, and neighbors.  I do not like the idea of a “collective” taking charge of children, and I think that conservatives would be fools to disregard this progressive idea.  This idea is part of socialism and communism, systems where the state takes complete control over every aspect of the people’s lives.

                Socialist governments – such as Cuba, China, North Korea, and Russia - take children from their parents and indoctrinate them in state-controlled schools.  The governments of some countries take the children from their parents very early and only allow them to visit their parents on weekends or at the end of the school year.  The children are encouraged to spy on their parents and report what their parents are doing in their homes.  By indoctrinating the children, they gain control and power over the rising generations and thus total control in their countries.

                Taking the children is all part of the plan to destroy families.  Our government destroys families when it encourages pre-marital sex by paying for contraceptives or morning after pills to prevent pregnancy and abortions to end pregnancies. Our society weakens families by feminism and divorce.  The very foundation of the family – marriage – is being threatened by people who want to “redefine” traditional marriage. 

                We must not let this evil idea gain strength in our nation.  We must root it out and destroy it.  We must understand that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that marriage was instituted by God in order to have a safe place to bear and rear children.  The best place for children to learn proper behavior and principles is in the home, and the best teachers are their own loving fathers and mothers.  We must not let progressives undermine our homes and families with their evil ideas.